Marketing, advertising & media intelligence

Trade Me's Holiday Houses has had a shakeup to reflect an increasing population of mobile visitors.

The site is a Kiwi original, set up in 2000 before Trade Me was founded. It got a makeover when it came under Trade Me's roof in 2009, but the company says this is the most extensive overhaul since then and it has now gone responsive.

Growing traffic to the site from users of tablets and smartphones was a key driver of the change, says general manager Andrew McKaskell.

In the first two months of this year, visits from tablets were up 75 percent on the same time a year ago, while smartphone visits had more than doubled in the same time.

“Travel bookings and a mobile device go hand-in-hand as as people search, book and pay for stays on the go," says McKaskell. "Users’ expectations are changing and we’d be fools not to put a lot of effort into making our site mobile-friendly."

Of the 1.2 million visits the site received in the year's first two months, visits from mobile devices made up 35 percent, compared with 20 percent a year ago.

In-house developers changed the way images are viewed on the site and freshened the interface, making the site more image rich and improving its performance on mobile.

The new design was developed by Auckland designer Bettina Way of The Way To Be.

“After the overhaul we’re looking forward to the feedback from Holiday Houses browsers on the user experience front,” McKaskell says. “In terms of payments, we’re working to make these as seamless as possible."

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